The media has been abuzz today at the prospect of Russian nuclear bombers being stationed in Cuba if the US goes ahead with plans for missile defense bases in Eastern Europe.
The story has riled the US enough that a US general has been wheeled out to tell the world’s press that any Russian attempt to build another nuclear base in Cuba would cross US “red line”.
The story broke earlier this week, when Russian newspaper Izvestia quoted an un-named source from within the Russian military. He told the Russian daily:
“While they are deploying the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, our strategic bombers will already be landing in Cuba.”
The quote hasn’t been independently confirmed, but the Russian Defense Ministry added fuel to the fire when they refused to comment on the story.
The prospect of Russian nuclear forces being stationed in Cuba - which is, after all, only 90 miles from the US coast - would bring back some rather unpleasant memories for the US of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, where the Soviet Union under Nikita Kruschev launched an audacious and foolhardy bid to station nuclear missiles on the Caribbean island.
http://www.siberianlight.net/2008/07/23/russian-nuclear-bombers-cuba/
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Russia to help Cuba modernize weaponry, train military
September 18, 2009
HAVANA, September 18 (RIA Novosti) - Modernization of the Soviet-made military equipment and training of Cuban military personnel will be the focus of Russian-Cuban military cooperation in the near future, the chief of the Russian General Staff said on Friday. Gen. Nikolai Makarov arrived on a working visit to Cuba on Monday, met with Cuban President Raul Castro and the country's military leadership, and visited a number of military installations.
"During the Soviet era we delivered a large number of military equipment to Cuba, and after all these years most of this weaponry has become obsolete and needs repairs," Makarov said.
"We inspected the condition of this equipment, and outlined the measures to be taken to maintain the defense capability of this country...I think a lot of work needs to be done in this respect, and I hope we will be able to accomplish this task," the general said.
Makarov said the Cuban request for assistance with training of military personnel will also be fully satisfied.
Although the Cuban leadership has repeatedly said it has no intention of resuming military cooperation with Russia after the surprise closure of the Russian electronic listening post in Lourdes in 2001, bilateral military ties seem to have been improving following the visit of Russian Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin to Cuba in July last year.
A group of Russian warships, led by the Admiral Chabanenko destroyer visited Cuba in December last year during a Caribbean tour.
The story is full of misinformation and half-truths. Venona, for instance, revealed infiltration not only of the Manhattan Project, but the State Department and other government agencies.
Further, the reuse of codes was not necessarily caused by bungling, but by the stresses of war. The Russian one time pads were volumious, consisting of pages and pages organized into books. Under the stress of war time conditions, the Russians began to issue books which reused printed pages from other books, but in a different sequence. For instance, a code book might be produced by using pages from the previous ten code books selected, more or less, at random and shuffled. In the production of the cypher pads, the Russians took short cuts, it was not sloppy field work but high level shortcuts. They probably figured that the Americans would never bother to unravel them. Unfortunately for the Russians, when the same text is encoded in the same place using the same pad, perfect coincidence occurs. All the Americans had to look for was the same sequence of about 10 characters (something that would almost never happen by chance) to recognize two messages encyphered with the same book, and having phrases alike in brief passages. Once you have two messages encyphered with the same pad, decypherment is assured.
A poor assumption. If it costs us more to worry about them than it takes to transmit them, they are cost effective at the margin as long as we pay attention to them.
The LSM is desparate to convince us that these spies were a bunch of bumbling fools—as if Putin would finance that for 10 yrs. Anything to protect BO from embarassment.
http://joytiz.com/2010/ms-chapmans-charm-school/
Thread bump.
MIAMI HERALD.com: "CUBAN SPIES RECEIVED SECRET MESSAGES BY OLD-TIME SHORTWAVE" by Juan O Tamayo (SNIPPET: "The busiest Cuban station these days, and the only spy station in the world that uses the fax-like tones, has been baptized as HM01 by amateur eavesdroppers who run Web pages like Spooks List, Spynumbers, ShortwaveSchedule and Enigma2000." SNIPPET: "For the less computer-savvy spooks there's the M08a station, which broadcasts 16 messages in Morse code, developed for the telegraph in 1836, on a set weekly schedule and on many of the same frequencies as Hm01.") (February 16, 2014) (Read More...)
SLATE.com: "7887 KHZ, YOUR HOME FOR CLASSIC CUBAN ESPIONAGE RADIO The shortwave radio signals that the alleged Russian spies were using are still surprisingly effective" by Brett Sokol (July 6, 2010) (Read More...)
INTERNATIONAL NEWS ANALYSIS -- TODAY: "SPY UNIVERSITIES: EX-FOREIGN ESPIONAGE OPERATIVE REVEALS HOW PROFS., STUDENTS, AND OTHERS, ARE RECRUITED TO UNDERMINE AMERICA" by Toby Westerman (SNIPPET: "Keeping in Touch") (June 10, 2009) (Read More...)
THE BLAZE: "IRAN IS CULTIVATING CLOSER TIES WITH ANTI-AMERICAN COUNTRIES IN OUR HEMISPHERE" by Sharona Schwartz (SNIPPET: "Iran continues to actively cultivate ties among its allies in Latin America, including Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, a policy that some have warned could bring terrorism closer to U.S. borders.") (January 19, 2014) (Read More...)